Families and city grieve six victims of bus-train crash as service resumes on VIA Rail line in Ottawa

OTTAWA — They were federal employees, corporate workers, students. They were on their way to work, class, jobs or just enjoying a bus ride on a sunny day. And this week they were, tragically, on a double-decker transit bus torn apart by a passenger train.

They were identified by police Thursday: Michael Bleakney, 57; Karen Krzyzewski, 53; Rob More, 35; Kyle Nash, 21; Connor Boyd, 21; and Dave Woodard, 45, the bus driver. Most of the 34 others injured have been released from hospital.

Via Rail, which has been busing passengers between Ottawa and Brockville since Wednesday, reopened the line Friday and service returned to normal.

For heartbroken families and friends, though, the hard time of grieving begins.

“I can’t believe he is gone,” said Kyle Nash’s father Richard. “It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t real. It’s the cruelest thing I can imagine.” The 21-year-old was on his way to class at Carleton University at the time of his death. “He was taking the bus to school and now he’s dead.”

A second young accident victim, Connor Boyd, also 21, was also on his way to Carleton. “We are devastated by the loss of our son, Connor,” the Boyd family said in a statement. “He was so amazing and we are so proud of who he was. We are comforted to know he knew we loved him and we were proud of him.”

At the university, flags were lowered to half-mast as a show of respect for the two students as well as the other victims and their families.

“On behalf of the students, faculty, staff and alumni of Carleton University, I wish to offer our deepest sympathies to the families of students Connor Boyd and Kyle Nash, (and) to all of their friends and classmates,” said university president Roseann O’Reilly Runte. “The loss of such young people, who were in the prime of their lives, will touch us in many ways.”

“We are very saddened by the lost of Karen (Krzyzewski),” said her brother, Hussar. “Karen’s passing comes as a complete shock to family and friends. She was a gentle spirit who was caring and compassionate to others,” he said, noting that his sister was a longtime staff member at Library and Archives Canada.

Rob More’s father, Michael, said his son, who was born with cerebral palsy, was fond of riding buses as a way to see the city. He liked to sit at the front of the double-decker buses to get the best view. Early Wednesday, like every other day, Rob called his father just before catching the express bus to an IBM Canada office, where he worked in maintenance.

“I talked to him a 8:10 a.m.,” Michael More said. “Less than an hour later, he was gone.”

“In the truest sense of the word, he was a real human being,” said Ravi Sundararaj, a colleague of Michael Bleakney’s at Public Works and Government Services Canada, where he worked as a senior geotechnical engineer overseeing excavations on Parliament Hill as part of the restoration project at the Parliament Buildings. “He was the guy everybody turned to. He was one of the reasons we came into work, because we knew he was there. He’s irreplaceable.”

Grieving too was the family of driver Dave Woodard, a 10-year veteran of the bus service. “I lost my husband, the love of my life, my best friend, the (father) of my daughter, and a great stepdad to the boys,” Terry Woodard said in a Facebook posting. “I don’t know what to say. I want him back so much. (He will) be always in my prayers, in my mind, but most of all in my heart.”

She defended her husband in a CBC Radio interview. He was, she said, “a very careful driver” who would “never put anyone in jeopardy. Something had to go wrong. There’s no way he went through the barriers for no reason.”

Transportation Safety Board lead investigator Rob Johnston said “at this point we’re just trying to see what we have — but are sure the bus hit the train.”

Investigators hope to use information from event recorders on the bus and the train, along with a global positioning system, to determine the speed of the bus at the time of the crash, whether the driver applied the brakes and whether there was any mechanical failure.

The federal government said the rail crossing met existing safety standards, adding that authorities never applied for funding under a special federal improvement program for the crossings.

Transport Canada said in a statement that it contributed about $4-million in 2005 through a federal infrastructure fund for an extension of a dedicated bus lane that included work on the grade crossing where the bus slammed into the train.

“This crossing met all safety requirements,” said Transport Canada in a statement. “Authorities have never submitted an application for this crossing under the Transport Canada’s Grade Crossing Improvement Program.”

The department said that the authorities eligible to apply could either be the city or the railway authority.

The City of Ottawa had considered building a underpass or overpass at the crossing, but opted instead to improve warning signs and signals because of the estimated cost of the separated crossing, and opposition from nearby residents to an overpass.

Transport Canada was not immediately able to answer questions about whether it has delayed plans to introduce new regulations to improve safety at crossings where trains intersect with road vehicles.

But speaking to reporters at an event in Oakville, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said the department had been working on the regulations for a number of years and was looking to unveil them in the coming months.

It takes a while to draft several aspects of it but I can tell you this is an incredibly important aspect of going forward with respect to rail safety and we have our full attention on it

In the meantime, she said it has been investing in improvements at key grade crossings.

“We’ve been in consultation with industry and municipalities (about the regulations) because they are the ones who are going to have to implement them,” said Raitt, appointed as transport minister in July. “I expect that we will be moving as quickly as we can with respect to these regulations and, in fact, the regulations are in drafting right now. So it takes a while to draft several aspects of it but I can tell you this is an incredibly important aspect of going forward with respect to rail safety and we have our full attention on it.”

She also said that the industry shouldn’t wait for the regulations to address safety risks since it should know what will be expected.

The department faced similar questions about its safety oversight record over the summer in the aftermath of the deadly Lac-Megantic runaway train disaster that killed dozens of people in an explosion that destroyed buildings in the small Quebec town.

Raitt described the accident on Wednesday as a “terribly tragic event” on Twitter and said she had appointed a special observer to monitor the investigation, helping to share timely information required to make decisions on safety issues.

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